Growth defects in PVD hard coatings

In PVD coatings, various growth defects typically appear during the deposition. Such defects are drawbacks in coating application. In order to improve the tribological properties of PVD hard coatings it is important to minimize the defect density. Various PVD hard coatings were prepared by evaporation using a thermionic arc and by sputtering using unbalanced magnetron sources. Coating topography was analyzed using a 3D stylus profilometer and other analytical techniques (SEM, FIB). We studied the influence of different types of substrate materials, the substrate position in the vacuum chamber, pre-treatment and deposition parameters on defect density.